


Paperwork

by Leidolette



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: F/M, Hand Jobs, Misunderstandings, Sex Pollen, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2018-08-16 19:34:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8114815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leidolette/pseuds/Leidolette
Summary: Miss Pauling finds herself implementing one of the lesser-known contingency plans.





	1. Emergency Contact

**Author's Note:**

> The sex pollen form was inspired heavily by the fic 7A WF 83429 by victoria_p (musesfool).
> 
> \----
> 
> Just want to let everyone know that the update schedule for this fic will likely be erratic as hell.
> 
> I went back and forth about writing this because I thought it might be too similar to Shoot to Maim. Then I realized -- who cares? It's fanfiction.

On the morning of January 1, 1973, Miss Pauling arrived bright and early to Mann Co. headquarters. She stopped by the empty mess hall to put on a pot of coffee before collecting a stack of binders nearly as tall as she was from the mimeograph machine room. She carefully balanced her fresh mug on the top binder, and then made her way towards the office wing. 

Miss Pauling had just settled in at one of the desks when Mr. Bidwell walked in, carrying his own tower of binders an a steaming cup of coffee. His entrance was completely expected by Miss Pauling -- he'd been her New Year's Day companion every year since he'd been hired on as Mr. Hale's assistant. And, just like her, he had a mountain of annual paperwork that needed to be completed as soon as possible, and that meant by the end of the evening on the first day of the new year. 

He waved to her over his stack of binders and they each said their distracted 'hello's, but they quickly quieted as they were absorbed by the stacks of binders in front of them -- paperwork was a harsh mistress. The hours passed quickly with only the sounds of their pens scratching on paper rising above the low background hum of the facility. 

The forms too were familiar to Miss Pauling. The vast majority were the same every year, and she found herself giving the same answers to the same questions. Yes, she agreed to take only one day off a year. Yes, she agreed to a non-disclosure agreement regarding every aspect of her work at Mann Co. upon pain of death. Yes, she agreed -

Miss Pauling paused at line 348(d) of the form. Huh, that one _definitely_ wasn't there last year. 

Miss Pauling... wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. She chewed on the back of her pen absently -- _"pre-selected emergency sexual congress participant,"_ she thought. Were her bosses honestly asking who she would like to fuck if she accidentally downed a bit of the Spanish Fly? It seems they were. 

Her mind flipped though the possibilities, almost involuntarily. Unsurprisingly, Miss Pauling could think of few people outside of work that she knew, and even fewer that she would find suitable for something like this. She certainly didn't have a significant other, so a more conventional choice for an emergency sexual congress partner was out of the question. 

That just left coworkers. She pictured all the mercs -- Scout was the obvious choice in terms of enthusiasm, but Spy was the obvious choice when it came down to trust (counterintuitive as that sounded). But Spy had his own romantic interest that Miss Pauling doubted that he would would betray (nor would she want him to), so that avenue was likely closed (and, frankly, Miss Pauling thought that was probably for the best). 

There just didn't seem to be any good candidates. Advice was obviously needed. 

"Have you reached line 348(d) yet?" she asked Mr. Bidwell, who had the dubious honor of filling the role of counselor by virtue of being the only other person in the room. He blinked at her, then flipped through his own stack of papers next to him until he reached the page in question. 

"Oh yes, I heard they instituting new protocols this year. Apparently, there was quite a commotion after the accident in the Raleigh lab in September," Bidwell said. 

Damn, he got all the good gossip before her. Miss Pauling supposed that there were side benefits to being the assistant to Mr. Hale, even if you did have to put up with all the animals and boisterous rough housing. 

"What happened?"

"An unfortunate lab accident coincided with lax food handling practices. Apparently, lasagna day in the Raleigh branch's cafeteria resulted in a huge headache for everyone involved in the cleanup -- for messes both food-related and... interpersonal."

Miss Pauling winced. She didn't envy them at all -- thank god she had yet to run cleanup for anything like that. 

"I suppose I should be grateful they're giving us a choice," Miss Pauling muttered.

"Yes. Rather unexpectedly generous of our bosses," Mr. Bidwell agreed. And it really was, compared to the usual status quo. Miss Pauling was a little surprised that the Administrator wouldn't have just locked her in a freezing shower until she either got better or drowned -- with drowning the more likely outcome. Or maybe the Administrator would have sent in a faceless, expendable Mann Co. underling for Miss Pauling to do with as she would.

Either way: ugh.

Now to broach the question that had been forming ever since she read line 348(d) and considered her options. Miss Pauling resisted the urge to fidget; she couldn't help the swell of embarrassment that rose in her chest, despite her and Mr. Bidwell having a perfectly cordial, professional relationship in the face of much more ridiculous scenarios than this.

Oh well, nothing to do but ask, Miss Pauling supposed. She cleared her throat, "Mr. Bidwell... would you like to be my pre-selected emergency sexual congress participant?" 

She waited for his answer with unease. While there had never been anything beyond a strictly professional relationship between her and Mr. Bidwell in the past, there was a possibility that he would take this question as a come-on. And, no offense intended to Mr. Bidwell, but that sort of entanglement was the last thing that Miss Pauling needed.

But she needn't have worried, because Mr. Bidwell's face was all relief. "Oh, thank god," he said. "I thought it would be unprofessional to ask, but I couldn't think of anyone else. If I didn't write a name down, they would probably pair me with Mr. Reddy, and you know he would be just insufferable about the whole thing."

Miss Pauling laughed a little, also relieved. "I think we can manage to be professional about it. And I promise not to be _too_ insufferable when you call me with hearts in your eyes after being struck by some enemy love bomb."

Rolling his eyes, Mr. Bidwell stuck out his hand with faux-solemnity and they shook on. Then, they each went back to the nine more hours of annual paperwork they had to complete that day. 

And that was that on the subject of 348(d) for about seven months.

Indeed, that may have been that on the subject of 348(d) forever, if Miss Pauling had not gone out on a remote assignment about eight months later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transcription of the image text:  
>  In the event of exposure to a gas/liquid/powder/pollen/power-up/product of administrative whim/residue/animal or any other agent that causes intense sexual arousal in the subject, to the point of bodily injury or death if left untreated, does the employee give consent to be paired with a pre-selected emergency sexual congress participant?
> 
> Y___ N___
> 
> If the answer to the previous question was yes, please record below the full name and telephone number of the person designated the employee's pre-selected emergency sexual congress participant.
> 
> Full Name:_____________
> 
> Phone Number (including area code):_______________


	2. Protocol

It happened on one of their side jobs. A not-uncommon third party mission in which Mann Co. would hire the mercs out if there was currently a lull in hostilities with whatever enemy they happened to be at war with this week. Even Saxon Hale's rather unorthodox sense of business acumen rebelled at the thought of million dollar mercenaries sitting idle for multi-week stretches. 

So, the men were contracted out to the highest bidder -- usually to shadowy foreign quasi-governmental agencies or amoral multi-national corporations looking to engage in some corporate espionage. 

And, of course, the mercs being sent on a job meant that Miss Pauling was contracted out too, since she was responsible for the cleanup. The sun was just beginning to sink into another brilliant desert sunset when Miss Pauling pulled up to the building that had been part of a rival research and development firm just this morning, but was now now (hopefully) empty of all personnel save the bodies left behind. Before she got out of the truck, Miss Pauling grabbed a sidearm just in case -- the mercenaries had made mistakes before. Lots of them. She went around to the bed of the truck and pulled out all her old friends: a tarp, bleach, quicklime, and a shovel. She looked at them affectionately, she wasn't sure which ones she would need, but she was glad they were with her. This was gonna be a long night. 

"Hey there, Miss Pauling!"

Miss Pauling jumped nearly a foot in the air, and Scout was lucky that Miss Pauling was busy wrestling with a fifty pound bag of quicklime, because otherwise she might have shot him out of pure surprise. 

"Scout! What are you doing here?" She looked around for the other mercenaries, but there were none.

"I figured I'd stick around after the mission. Y'know, see if you needed help with anything."

"It's just the usual cleanup assignment. You know, scrubbing the evidence and sandpapering off the fingerprints, that sort of thing."

Scout looked a little green around the gills at her words. Miss Pauling always found it funny that he was sometimes squeamish about the specifics of her job. After all, he was part of the team creating all those corpses in the first place. But, whatever level of his distaste, he seemed to be trying to power through it. "Heh, well, I know you could use a hand here. You're always talking about all the overtime the Administrator makes you pull."

Miss Pauling half shrugged. "I guess I could use the help." Despite his constant (and sometimes annoying) desire to be in her immediate vicinity, Scout didn't often accompany her on her cleanup tours. He was usually too squeamish. Still, she wasn't averse to his presence. She'd be fine having him tag along, as long as he helped more than he hindered (which, unfortunately, wasn't a given). To be honest, it might almost be nice having him around; his constant chatting was something for her to half-focus on besides the mundane details of her job.

And, like it or not, the sheer amount of time that Miss Pauling spent working meant that her coworkers were her only friends, if only by default. To distract herself from this rather depressing thought, Miss Pauling went back to her trunk bed to ready the tools of her trade for their night's work.

Scout beat her to it. "Watcha got there? Looks a little heavy for ya. Never mind, I got it." Scout bent down to pick up the sack of quicklime. Miss Pauling got a quick burst of vindication when he let out a grunt trying to swing the sack over his shoulder. 

"I brought a wheelbarrow for that," she said.

"Aw, we don't need anything like that. See, no -- _huff_ \-- problem." Sweat was already beginning to bead around his hairline. 

"Mmhmm." Miss Pauling was half-tempted to lead him on a wild goose chase around the facility and see how long he could carry that sack before his back gave out, but she decided against it. She had a schedule to keep. "If you say so. Now, follow me."

Miss Pauling walked up the prim walkway to the entrance of the non-descript office building. Despite the rather boring scene this site presented from the road, up close the cracks started to show. The widest of these cracks was the explosive splatter of blood and gore on the brick next to the main entrance of the facility, along with the dead bodies of several guards. Through the glass door, Scout and Miss Pauling could see more corpses in the interior lobby and hallway.

Despite being the one that had _made_ many of these corpses, Scout looked around, aghast. "Body disposal? We don't gotta take care of _all_ these bodies, do we?" Miss Pauling suspected that Scout had used much the same tone of voice when appealing to his mother about the number of vegetables on his plate as a child. 

"No," Miss Pauling said. "Tonight we're doing something a little more specific." With that, Miss Pauling took out her gun and sent a ringing shot through the entrance's automatic lock. Then, opened the newly unlocked door and set off at a crisp pace down the hallway. 

As they went further into the facility, and away from the side windows of the lobby, the hallway darkened until the only light was the intermittent red glow of emergency lighting, and the only sounds were the buzz of the generator and huff of Scout's breath as he struggled with his burden. 

Finally, in the bowels of the building, after several twists and turns and flights of stairs, they came upon room B162 -- a match for the designation given in the dossier for this assignment. She took a deep breath to steel herself, then entered.

"This is the reason we're here?" Scout sounded unimpressed. "Place looks like my freshman year science class. Like, we could be seeing Mr. Laughlin in a stupid bow tie walk in any second talking about nitrogen or something, I don't know."

Despite herself, Miss Pauling found herself in agreement. For a state-of-the-art laboratory in a facility that specialized in illegal, cutting-edge science, the room looked surprisingly pedestrian. There was a large, bolted-in metal table in the center of the room supporting several microscopes and boxes of slides. Lining the walls of the room were cabinets running along the floors and the ceiling, between them was a waist-high counter with black epoxy resin counter tops. Other than that, there were a few more standard lab items around the room, but that was it.

Miss Pauling heard the dull thud of Scout dropping the sack of quicklime to the floor as she continued to scan the room, thinking about where to start. There was a bookcase along the window wall, rows of full shelves above the counters, and enough cabinets and drawers to hide a library in. She was suddenly glad that Scout had offered to help, despite his dubious motivations. With two people working the task could be completed much more quickly.

"We're looking for something in particular here. Somewhere in this room Project Springtime's lead scientist has stored all his notes and experimental data relating to a potential new compound that your contract holder would prefer to stay off the market," Miss Pauling explained. "We have to search this room, top to bottom. If you see anything that refers to 'Springtime' or a neurochemistry project, give it to me."

So, they got to work. Apparently in a nostalgic mood due to his surroundings, Scout kept up a running commentary about high school, about summer vacation, about beaches and street food and trash. About anything that went through his brain, really. Miss Pauling didn't mind, his words became background chatter that entertained the part of her mind that wasn't engaged in checking each binder and data pad that she pulled off the shelf. Sometimes it was nice to be reminded about things that weren't work.

"Got it!" Scout said triumphantly after nearly a half hour, holding up a notebook. It was non-descript except for PROJECT: SPRINGTIME centered on the cover in small black type.

"Oh, good." Miss Pauling smiled. "Give it here please." As soon as Scout set the notebook in her hand, she pulled a lighter out of her shirt pocket and set fire to the pages.

"Hey!" Scout said in surprise. Miss Pauling wanted to giggle at the comically affronted look on his face.

"Sometimes evidence disposal means more than just burying bodies," Miss Pauling said as the pages began to blacken and curl up. She threw the notebook in the lab sink before the flames reached her fingers. Once the fire had burned itself out and every page was nothing more than wispy black flecks, she turned the water on and washed the whole thing down the sink. 

"That's it?" Scout said when she was done. "We just had to burn some nerd's bio notes? Man, talk about easy -- I must have done that a dozen times in high school. We didn't even have to hand out any wedgies--" Scout stopped abruptly, and looked like he wanted to put his foot in his mouth. For the life of her, she didn't know why; it's not like she cared that he was a small-time high school bully.

"No, there's a little more," she said after a beat of silence. "The mission's primary goal has been completed, but we still need to salt the earth. Well, quicklime the earth might be more accurate." She handed Scout a pair of gloves and retrieved a scoop from the bag. "Basically, just start pouring quicklime on anything that looks vaguely sciency. These experiments are extremely sensitive and reactive, so the quicklime should be an easy way to destroy them."

"Aye aye, captain." He have her a wink, and a lazy salute that Soldier would have got on his ass about for hours if he'd seen Scout's sloppy execution. And then Scout was on his way, grabbing a scoopful of quicklime and sprinkling it into any open container he could find. Behind him, Scout left a trail of bubbling, discolored test tubes. He hindered scientific progress even more effectively than if he had been that same high school kid that gave atomic wedgies to any kid who got over a C in biology.

Scout reached up to pour quicklime into another experiment that some enterprising scientist had attempted to store on the highest shelf. The motion pulled the hem of his shirt up to reveal a thin glimpse of skin just above the waist of his pants. With his back safely turned to her, Miss Pauling let her eyes linger on the exposed strip of skin.

Scout would brag and flex, but it was only during moments like these -- distracted, honest moments -- that Miss Pauling ever felt the slow stirring of attraction. Sometimes it felt like she was nurturing some sort of endangered, secret flora that was constantly under siege -- whether that be the endless grind of her long working hours, or the dumbass antics of the man who had planted the seed himself. 

Why she even bothered trying to feel anything besides harried in this life that she led was beyond her, but, there it was anyway. She was too busy jumping from emergency to emergency to do much of anything that didn't involved a clipboard, a shovel, or a gun.

Then -- as if the universe had heard Miss Pauling's thoughts and realized that nothing _too_ absurd had happened to her in the last twenty four hours -- a series of tiny popping sounds caught Miss Pauling's attention and she turned around to face Scout. Though they were innocuous on their own, the Miss Pauling looked over just in time to see them trigger a chain reaction that was anything but harmless.

**One:** One of the many, unlabeled test tubes that lined the counters was bubbling over like a can of Bonk! shook one too many times. The bubbles fizzed and popped -- a few sprayed flecks right under Scout's nose.

**Two:** Scout's face screwed up in a supremely unflattering expression. Seemingly trying to resist, his chest still involuntarily filled with a huge breath. Then, as if teetering over the top of a roller coaster, he let out a full-body sneeze that was as deafening as a yell.

**Three:** The force of his sneeze put Scout off balance, and blindly swung out his arm to steady himself. His fingers closed automatically around the handle of a broom that was propped up along the wall. 

**Four:** The broom, of course, did nothing to stop Scout from falling. Instead, the tip of the handle smashed _every single beaker_ in its path along the top of the shelf. Small fragments of glass and the myriad fluids from the containers rained down. Scout, with the luck of the devil, was clean and dry by the time everything settled -- but Miss Pauling was not so fortunate. 

The whole series of events had been like a Rube Goldberg machine. All that was missing was the startled hen laying an egg. Normally, Miss Pauling would be the first to blame Scout (for all the good it usually did), but even she had to admit that this accident was pretty unforeseeable. 

"Damn it!" she yelled in surprise as the mystery concoction sprayed across her front. It was not a fun time for Miss Pauling. Seconds after the liquid splashed over her hands and arms, a mild itching sensation began in the areas it had made contact with her skin. 

"Oh shit, Miss Pauling, I'm sorry!" Scout held his hands out helplessly.

She ignored him and scanned frantically for a sink, or anything to get the fluid off her skin. The itching feeling had graduated to a light burning sensation, and she had an inkling that it was only going to get worse. She had a flash of gratitude that none of it had splashed in her eyes. Then, there, in the corner she spotted a chemical shower. Perfect. 

"Scout, leave now," Miss Pauling said as she stripped off her cardigan and threw it on the floor. The action seemed to give Scout a jolt, and his eyes followed her hands, which were now untucking her button down shirt from her skirt. 

"Wait, w-what are you do--"

"Scout! Get out."

Maybe it was the tone of her voice, or maybe it was the growing V of skin as she unbuttoned her shirt, but Scout seemed to have decided that she was serious, and he hustled out of the room. Miss Pauling stared for a second at the closed lab door, and when Scout didn't immediately barge back in, she quickly stripped off the rest of her clothes and pulled the red emergency lever attached to the chemical shower.

Water splashed down over Miss Pauling in a freezing wave, but the prickling pain in her arms and hands lessened right away. She stood there, shivering, in under the water until every inch of her skin felt normal again, and then another ten minutes after that.

It was weird showering there in a corner of the lab with Scout just on the other side of the door. Very weird. She imagined him out in the hallway; he was probably fidgeting -- maybe pacing back and forth. He had some lean legs, so he was probably going pretty fast. Sometimes when Scout got impatient, he would bounce on the balls of his feet for a few moments, and she could practically see all the muscles in his long legs tighten and relax over and over--

_Stop,_ Miss Pauling thought. She pulled the red lever again and the shower turned off. Aside from standing in the middle of a strange laboratory naked and dripping wet, she physically felt completely normal.

There were several pairs of white lab coats in a closet, and she chose the largest one. Presumably meant for a tall man, the coat ended an inch past her knee. She had to roll up the ends of the sleeves a couple times to make the length reasonable. She was a presentable as she was ever going to be in a situation like this. Thank god the material was thick, at least. 

"Are you all right?" Scout's muffled voice came through the shut door.

"I think so!" she yelled back. She didn't particularly want to finish this mission dressed in only a lab coat, but it was time to face the music.

"Whoa-oh-oh! Where're your clothes, Miss Pauling?" Scout said when she walked out into the hallway. Her earlier thoughts had been right; he had been fidgeting when she'd come out.

"In the trash can. Can't take the chance they were contaminated with stray droplets. This will work for now," she said, hoping that if she projected an aura of professionalism, Scout would fall in line. 

Scout, however, was apparently the site of a battle between his urge to leer unrepentantly and his urge to show that he was good boyfriend material.

"Aw, crap, Miss Pauling," he said with agitation. "So that's really all you got to wear?"

"Yes. It's fine," she said, but he was already in motion.

Scout pulled off his cap and headset before grabbing the back of his T-shirt and pulling it over his head, leaving him in just his undershirt. "Here," he said, giving it a quick, surreptitious sniff before holding it towards Miss Pauling. "It's, uh, pretty clean. So you don't have to worry."

It was surprisingly thoughtful of him, and Miss Pauling said as much. Still, she took the shirt -- still warm -- from his hands. Suddenly, Miss Pauling had the rather insane idea to let the lab coat slide off her shoulders there in the hallway and slip his shirt on over her naked body right in front of him. Somehow that felt like the most natural thing in the world; not strange or embarrassing at all. All she had to do was undo the buttons keeping her lab coat closed, one by one, and slide her arms around Scout who leaned down and--

_Stop,_ Miss Pauling ordered herself. What was wrong with her? She suspected that she already knew the answer to that.

She ducked back into the room and slipped the shirt over her head. It smelled surprisingly pleasant -- it was also surprisingly difficult to resist the urge to bring the fabric up to her face and continue drawing in the scent. But Miss Pauling just put the lab coat back on over the shirt, and went back out to rejoin Scout. 

She swept by him quickly, not allowing herself time to register the lines of lean muscle in his back. She tried to exude as much confidence as possible while stepping over bodies in just a lab coat, a borrowed t-shirt, and her flats. Scout followed along behind her, like a boat pulled into her wake, his eyes still big and trained on her. Good, maybe he would keep his mouth shut the whole drive back to base, and therefore give her no cause whatsoever to stare at his lips. 

For Scout's part, he was pretty good about the whole thing. He had something of weird vibe as they made their way out of the building, but there were no crude comments or attempts at an up-skirt glance as they went up the stairwell. The only difference was his strange over-solicitousness; he would jog past her to hold open every door, and asked if she was feeling okay several times. Each time she said yes, which wasn't a lie, but wasn't the truth either.

When they reached the exit, Miss Pauling slipped away from Scout's side to make a call. As non-OSHA compliant as Mann Co. was, there was still a procedure to be followed here. Miss Pauling called it in on her long-range radio. "Initiate form 348(d) contingency plan," Miss Pauling said after relaying her ident code to the nameless communications officer that picked up the phone. "It's been-" she checked her watch, "-approximately 25 minutes since exposure. Scout and I are returning to headquarters."

"Roger that," the officer said, "we'll be ready."

Miss Pauling ended the transmission, and then she was stuck pondering the question of which one of them should drive. She was now flushed and light-headed, with an occasional fever-shiver running through her. Plus, she was deeply distracted by Scout in a way that she suspected would only get worse. However, Scout was Scout, she'd seen him bust up more vehicles than she could count, and giving him the keys was like--

She shivered, a wave of heat ran through her. She struggled to keep ahold of her train of thought, but she suddenly could think of nothing but the prickling of her skin in the night air. _Giving him the keys was like--_

"Okay, got everything loaded up. You ready to go, Miss Pauling?"

The spell of confusion receded a bit at Scout's words. But not enough. She realized that she was too compromised to drive. "Here," she said, tossing the keys at him. "Straight back to the base, okay?"

"Gotcha." The word was accompanied with twin finger guns. The fact that the gesture did nothing at all to cool her ardor was beyond fucked up. 

"Hop in, Miss Pauling, I'll get ya home," Scout called from the driver's seat. But Miss Pauling paused, remembering something.

"Just a second." There was something Miss Pauling had to do, before it slipped her mind again. From the dashboard of the truck, Miss Pauling withdrew a small, simple device. It resembled a grey rectangular box with a circular red button. The fact that it was given to Miss Pauling by Demoman would be a canny detective's first indication that the thing was more than it seemed. The fact that the facility they'd just left erupted into a fiery explosion after Miss Pauling pressed the button would be the second.

"Okay, we can go now," Miss Pauling said to Scout, who was leaning out the window, staring at the flames. "Just had to make sure."

Scout, amazingly, drove relatively decently on the return trip to base. Not that Miss Pauling really noticed the drive; she was too preoccupied with the way that the cab of the truck seemed to be shrinking, pushing her closer and closer to Scout. Truly, she knew it was just her slowly closing the gap between them, but her movement was so beyond her own control that she certainly felt like she was being pushed along by the walls of truck itself.

"...so me and my bother gotta go check it out, of course..." 

She could put her hand on his thigh. Would he stop talking then, or would she have to drag her hand higher? She didn't particularly want him to be quiet; here, on this dark road, with her head spinning, she found the sound of his voice comforting, even if she couldn't concentrate on the actual contents. But as a barometer for his feelings, Scout's silence could often reveal more than his words.

"...and then I was like 'Buddy, you don't know the half of it'..."

Would his voice break as she cupped her hands over the zipper of his jeans? Would his voice climb higher and higher as her grip firmed and she moved back and forth? Or would he talk through all of it, even when she undid the button and slid her hand inside for some skin-to-skin contact? She imagined his breath warm in her ear and his cock hot in her hand. Another wave of lust hit her.

"... but that numbskull--"

"Pull over," she said through the cloud of heat and dizziness.

"What?" 

"Pull over!" she shouted.

Scout jerked the wheel and skidded to a stop on the side of the dirt road. Miss Pauling was already opening the passenger door before the car completely halted, and she jumped out as soon as possible, walking quickly in the field beside the road and ignoring Scout's confusion and concern.

Miss Pauling paced back and forth in through the knee-high grass of the field. Crickets chirped around her; under the weak light of the half moon she could see the brush stretch off into the distance with only the occasional tree and boulder to break up the the scene. Miss Pauling paced faster, trying to outrun... something. 

And failing.

Her speedwalking slowed, then petered off to a stop. Scout called to her from the road, worried and asking her if she was going to throw up. When she didn't answer him -- and didn't lean over to puke in the grass -- he jogged out to her.

"C'mon, Miss Pauling, you're really getting me worried here. Talk to me."

Scout's lips were parted around his prominent front teeth. Moonlight reflected in his eyes. Miss Pauling's head was as clear as a glass knife. She leaned forward and kissed him.

She surprised herself with her gentleness. Earlier she had practically wanted to devour him, and now she cupped her hand on his cheek and kissed him so sweetly. Scout followed her lead like a broken mirror, his movements half a second behind her own. Contrary to everything she had believed about him, Scout didn't push and he didn't try to speed it up. Though Miss Pauling was the one with some unknown toxin coursing through her veins, he was the only one who was shaking.

Scout was easy enough to coax down to the ground, after a few minutes. A little nudge there and little pull here had him reclining in the field under that wide swath of stars. All her instincts were screaming at her to lay atop him -- so she did. The slide of her thighs onto either side of him to embrace his hips in a snug straddle was the most natural thing in the world. Her fingers slid through his hair, too short to really grab, and she dragged her nails down the back of his neck. He shivered under her, and she wanted to bite through his skin, she wanted his hands everywhere, she wanted--

She kissed him.

And he kissed her back. And his left hand settled hesitantly on her thigh, his thumb just barely under the hem of the lab coat. After several long seconds, Scout broke the kiss and panted against her ear. Her grip curled around the side of Scout's neck -- not hard, but heavy enough to feel the pulse of his heart against her palm. His hand climbed higher on her naked thigh.

Then: tires scraping on dirt, the headlights from half-a-dozen cars, men's voices, and arms pulling her away from Scout and forcing her back onto her own two shaky feet.

"Ah, there you are, Miss Pauling." Medic's words just barely registered in Miss Pauling's consciousness. Whatever imagined clarity she'd had was now long gone.

"Wha--?"

"We were getting worried about you! Calling in an emergency and then never showing up? Of course we were going to come get you. And after all, what better place for a field medic?" He spread one arm, indicating the endless grassy field around them.

Miss Pauling struggled to get out of Medic's grasp and back over to Scout, whose fumbling fingers were failing at buttoning his jeans while being pulled to his feet by his own pair of burly Mann Co. employees. Her line of sight was almost immediately blocked by the harsh light of the penlight that Medic shined into one eye, and then the next.

"Any dizziness? Fever? Dissolving teeth?"

Any reply that Miss Pauling could have scraped together was preempted by the "Ow!" that came out of her mouth when Medic pricked the pointer finger of her right hand and squeezed a couple drops of blood into a small phial half-filled with a clear liquid. He shook the tube back and forth quickly, and the liquid clouded into a deep forest green. 

Medic looked at the colored phial and half-chuckled. "Well, I certainly recognize _this_ one. Fortunately, we suspected as much, and have brought your Form 348(d) pre-selected emergency sexual congress partner along." Medic cupped his hand around his mouth. "Oh, Mr. Bidwell!" he called towards the group of cars.

"Wait," Miss Pauling finally managed to get out, "I changed my mind." She looked for Scout again, but couldn't see beyond the shoulders of the men who were gently, but firmly, shepherding her to the group of Mann Co. cars.

Medic paid no attention to her. "Mmhmm, I've heard that line before -- that would be the chemical talking," he said distractedly while checking her pulse against his wristwatch.

"No, no," she practically whined, "I want Scout." She fisted her hand in the front of Medic's shirt to keep his attention. He was warm too, but she tried not to think about that. Then, for just a moment, she glimpsed Scout through the crowd. His face was red and his hands were clenched.

"Is she gonna be okay?" he asked hurriedly, voice rising higher. 

They hurried her into the car. No one answered him.

"Hey! Is she gonna be okay?!"

"Scout!" Miss Pauling tried to yell back blindly.

The car door shut. The outside world was abruptly muted. 

"I changed my mind," she tried one more time. But then it didn't matter. Nothing mattered because she realized there was another person in the backseat with her, and it was Mr. Bidwell. A stray feeling of disappointment flickered through her -- he wasn't quite what she wanted, was he? Mr. Bidwell seemed... unsatisfying, somehow. But then she took a deep breath and he just smelled so good, and he looked _so good_ , and then she was kissing him.

The rest of her thoughts slipped away like a dream.


	3. Recovery

Miss Pauling opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. She blinked bleary-eyed for a moment at the drop-down tiles instead of her usual wooden slats, before she had the rather startling realization that she was naked under the sheets. That was Unusual with a capital U. 

"Good morning."

Mr. Bidwell sat fully dressed with a newspaper in hand at a tiny table off to the side of the room. As she looked at him stupidly, he picked up the transmitter next to his coffee, "She's awake," he said into the mouthpiece. There was a tinny response that was too quiet for her to make out, then Mr. Bidwell nodded and said "Right," and ended the transmission. He turned back to Miss Pauling. "Do you remember what happened?"

The memory of last night had been seeping back in since he greeted her. And it wasn't great. "Ugh, yes. Line 348(d) happened."

Mr. Bidwell snorted. "Well, that's one way to put it. Do you remember the details?"

"Yes," she said, then "No." Finally she said, "They're fuzzy."

"That might be for the best," Mr. Bidwell said as he folded the paper and set it to the side, but he continued, "Would you like a summary of events? It seems... wrong to not know what happened. If you want."

"Alright." Miss Pauling was never one to shy away from the unpleasant details.

Mr. Bidwell cleared his throat. "You encountered an artificially produced sexual stimulant -- code name: Spanish Fly-By-Night. Successfully completing the two objective: securing the intelligence and destroying the facility," he recited. "You were under it's influence for about an hour before rendezvousing with the Mann Co. containment branch, as well as myself, after which we began Line 348(d) procedures." Mr. Bidwell stopped, and looked embarrassed for the first time that morning. "I used a condom," he said quickly.

"Good." Miss Pauling had expected nothing less. "Did everything... go alright?" She hardly knew what she was asking. 

"I believe so," Bidwell said, still seeming ill at ease. For good reason, Miss Pauling supposed, but their line of work had a way of eliminating any tendency towards embarrassment quickly, so it was still unusual to see the emotion on Bidwell's face. 

As he continued, Bidwell covered anything he might have felt with layer of professionalism. The more you fell back on businesslike protocol, the easier it came, Miss Pauling knew. 

"I hope we can still be... colleagues."

She half-smiled. "I think we can do that."

But now there was something else tugging on the shirtsleeves of her brain. "Scout?" she said, a few more memories filtering in. She remembered him talking, his face outlined in moonlight, but she couldn't recall anything he had said.

"Scout? Oh, yes, you were with him when you were exposed to the stimulant."

"Is he alright? Could I somehow have... transferred some of the chemical to him?" Miss Pauling asked. Frankly, there had been a lot skin-to-skin contact. Since the drug was a relatively unknown substance to her, Miss Pauling didn't know what might be in the realm possibility. 

Mr. Bidwell shrugged. "He seemed fine to me, if a bit... agitated. And Medic didn't seemed concerned about his condition, in any respect."

"I'm not sure that I've seen Medic concerned during the entire time he's worked for Mann Co., even when he's been covered in blood and viscera."

Mr. Bidwell had to acknowledge that as true. "Still, I'm sure he's alright. We could call him in, if you would like to see for yourself?"

The warmth of Scout's body under hers, the crack in his voice as they pulled her away. "Maybe later," she said.

Mr. Bidwell inclined his head towards her, giving away nothing of what he thought of the situation. "Alright. I have a short checklist that I need to run through, and then we're done." He picked up a pad from the side. 

"How do you feel?" he asked. 

"Embarrassed, mostly."

Mr. Bidwell made a check mark. "But better physically? More like yourself?"

"Yes."

"Good. And no injuries?"

Miss Pauling stretched and assessed herself. "Maybe a little sore, but otherwise fine."

Another check mark. "Also good. Though, Medic wants to give you a checkup, later."

Miss Pauling couldn't think of anything less appealing. "I'll pass," she said. 

"Alright," Mr. Bidwell said, flicking his pen. "And you of course waive any future claims arising from refusing medical attention."

Miss Pauling rolled her eyes. "As if you or I had any remaining legal rights after we signed our first employment contracts at Mann Co."

Mr. Bidwell shrugged in a can't-argue-with-you-there sort of way before he checked off the last box. "Alright, Miss Pauling, that seems to be about the last of it."

He stood up, then: "Oh! There is one more thing." Bidwell reached into a drawer and brought over a small, white, paper bag and placed it in her hands. "From Medic," he explained. "Just in case." 

"I'll just, uh, leave you to it, then," Bidwell finished a little awkwardly, waving his hand vaguely at her side of the room. Duty done, he exited the room.

What followed were a few moments of still, blessed silence before Miss Pauling dragged her hands down her face and forced herself to get up. 

There was a changing screen next to the bed, off to the left. Great. She swung her legs over the side of the mattress, and dragged the sheets with her off the bed, wrapped around her body, until she got behind the screen. Sure there was no one in the room with her anymore, but walking around naked in the cold and sterile room she'd woken up in didn't appeal to her in the slightest. Besides, Miss Pauling figured that she'd already been undressed in enough strange places lately to hold her over for a while. 

She had thought that her clothes from last night might be behind the screen, but no such luck. Nothing had been within sight while she was on the bed, either, so she was at a complete loss on where they might be, if not here. There was, however, a sterile set of white nurse's scrubs (minus the hat) which Miss Pauling threw on with a gusto. Grabbing the paper bag, she slipped out of the room and into the hallway, mercifully managing to avoid any personnel as she made her way. 

And that was the end of _that_ strange episode in her life, Miss Pauling thought when she reached the calm familiarity of her quarters. But as she would come to discover, that wasn't quite the case, was it?

* * *

It took longer than you'd think for Miss Pauling to notice that Scout was avoiding her. Like a constant, high-pitched noise that just abruptly stops one day leaving only a creeping silence, it was harder for Miss Pauling to detect a void than a presence. 

But once she had noticed, the truth of it was inescapable. He still mouthed-off on missions, he still listened with only minimal fidgeting at debriefs, but that extra energy was gone from him. Whatever addition drive that prodded him to follow her on her weapons check rounds, or trying lines over a crackling, two-way radio.

She should just let the matter go. Infatuations faded, that was natural. Really, it was amazing that Scout had chased her for as long as he had. Guys with his type of personality weren't really known for their constancy. _Though, before now, Scout had been,_ a part of Miss Pauling thought.

But an aspect of this sudden absence of Scout was not natural: the timing. What had caused the change in Scout? Well, the Spanish Fly-By-Night mission, obviously. But what part, exactly? Had it been her unpredictable actions? The aborted make out session?

Was he angry that she'd left with another man, despite it being out of her control?

Despite herself, she was unsettled. She didn't want to be. Miss Pauling didn't particularly like that she cared what Scout thought, but apparently she did. At least a little. At least enough to want to set the record straight with him, if that's what it needed.

Well, whatever the reason was, she supposed that it was time to find out. Miss Pauling had never been the type of woman to leave a job half-finished. 

So, turning to the same underhanded tactics she employed nearly every workday (and, therefore, almost everyday of the year), Miss Pauling took advantage of her access to manipulate his Mann Co. schedule and corner him in his room. Clipboard in hand, Miss Pauling waited for the lull created in Scout's afternoon by the upgrading and rewiring of large swaths of the base and the field. More matches, more power. 

Miss Pauling kept her eyes on her watch. Power to non-essential systems was cut at 3:30 as planned, so the electricians could start their work. Dim emergency power was all that lit the hallway she stood in, and the green indicator light of the security camera near the stairway flickered out. Miss Pauling promptly entered her override code on Scout's door and walked in without knocking. 

"Oh, shit, Miss Pauling! Can't you warn a guy?" he said as he snagged a blood-spattered t-shirt off the back of a nearby chair and quickly started putting it on. Halfway through he seemingly realized that a cool guy would _want_ to be shirtless in front of a woman, so he pulled it off again, acting like he'd meant to do it the whole time.

Long accustomed to Scout's particular brand of awkwardness, Miss Pauling ignored it and cut to the chase.

"Why are you avoiding me?"

He shifted uncomfortably, maybe guiltily. "I'm not avoiding you, just giving you some space, is all."

"Since when are you so thoughtful?"

"Hey! I'm always thoughtful!" Scout blustered. "When it comes to you," he added after a moment in a voice so open it was hard for Miss Pauling to take. 

"Thoughtful might not be the word I'd use. You've always been... attentive." 'Attentive' was the closest that Miss Pauling could come to covering all of Scout's actions in a single word, from essentially sexually harassing her in the beginning, to protecting her any way that he could, lately.

"Well, okay, but the point is, I'm not just some asshole, alright?" he said, the words spilling out of him.

She stared at him. She didn't know what to say. He _was_ an asshole, though, no denying it. Plenty of people would say she was one too, if you were a medium who consulted heavily with spirits rising from shallow graves. "It's alright," she said, for lack of anything better to say. 

"...Did you sleep with Bidwell?" The words were squeezed out of him like he was a tube of toothpaste. 

Miss Pauling was taken aback. Scout was certainly keeping her on her toes tonight. "Yes."

Scout closed his eyes and let out a long, hard exhale. "So I guess he's your boyfriend now, huh?"

Miss Pauling blinked. She certainly hadn't expected him to say _that_. The streak continued, apparently.

"No," Miss Pauling said slowly. "Is that what Bidwell is telling people?" she asked with some apprehension. 

"No, no, I haven't heard a peep outta that guy for a week. But..." He let that 'but' trail off into nothing, and Miss Pauling didn't pursue it. Looking back on it, she wished that she had; maybe she would have been able to avoid metaphorical ten-car pileup that would occur in just under thirty minutes. 

"No," she said again, firmly. "Selecting Mr. Bidwell as my Emergency Sexual Congress Participant was a purely bureaucratic decision. Every year Mann Co. requires that we choose someone, and, as someone I only rarely work with directly, Mr. Bidwell was the safest choice."

He let out a long relieved breath, but there's still an anstyness about him -- he still had something more to say.

"You can... you can always put me down. I'd do anything to help you, Miss Pauling." He rushed on. "I know that sounds like a line! In a messed up situation like this, I know it sounds like I'm just a big horndog, but, it's really true -- I just want to give you what you need."

Scout was quiet, so she took a deep breath and went on. "I wanted it to be you, that night of the mission. And, it was more than just the drug, I think." She hadn't planned to tell him that.

"Yeah?" His whole face animated with the revelation.

Miss Pauling decided then and there that she really liked that face. She stepped closer to him, close enough to sense the expansion of his chest from a nervous inhale.

"Yeah," she said.

She kissed him. He responded instantly, as if he were always waiting for her to kiss and had the mechanism locked and loaded at all times, just in case. Well, she supposed that must be just another trigger she enjoyed pulling, because it only took a moment before she gave back as good as she got. 

His enthusiasm was lovely, and she brought a hand up to jaw and neck. She held him there as they kissed, feeling the beat of his pulse. Her other arm slipped around to his back, and as she pulled him closer, firm muscle and bone pressed into her palm through the thin and worn weave of his t-shirt.

Things were heavy enough that the bed started to look very nice. They fell on it sideways, still kissing. The gentle impact bounced Miss Pauling a little over Scout and she found she was happy to fully complete the movement -- Scout's mouth felt very satisfying under hers.

The fabric of her pencil skirt stretched tight over her thighs when she straddled him. Under other circumstances, if she had merely been carried away with herself, the bite of the hem would probably be enough to shock her back into reason. But Miss Pauling just hiked her skirt up higher and squeezed Scout's waist tighter; she was herself right now, completely clearheaded and she wanted this, viscerally. Whatever he could give her.

She pulled off his shirt, momentarily breaking their kiss -- he could give her this. Her own shirt was gone, and when Scout finally figured out the hook-and-eye clasp of her bra, all his attention zeroed in on her breasts, and she was not without helping hands or a mouth for the next seemingly endless series of minutes -- another thing he gave her. She realized that she must be saying some of this aloud. Despite what she had thought earlier, she felt drunk, though she was free of any outside influence this time. Her blood coursed thick and hot through her veins, just as it had that night in the laboratory, the field. 

The memory of that night shook her somewhat out of lust-induced stupor. They had to reasonable about this; she wasn't dosed with some unknown chemical agent anymore. "Do you have a condom?" she asked, breaking off the kiss.

"Yeah, baby, I can give ya whatever you need," Scout mumbled into her neck like it was dirty talk. He kissed along her collar bone. 

"No, really, Scout -- do you have a condom?" She pushed back on his shoulder a little. 

Scout lifted his head back and blinked like he was waking from a dream. Then his face dropped. "Shit!" he said, scrambling for the shoe box off to the side of the cot. "C'mon, c'mon..." he muttered as he knelt there naked, rifling through the box. When he finally stood back up after a good bit of frantic searching, his face looked _devastated_ , like he'd just watched his million-dollar lottery ticket get sucked away by the wind. 

He turned around face her with a grimace passing for a smile and hands making a 'wait a sec' motion. "You won't believe this Miss Pauling, guy like me and all, but I'm fresh outta raincoats. Let me just swing by that pharmacy in Teufort and pick up another jumbo pack of magnums and we can pick up where we left off." 

"Teufort is a forty-five minute drive."

"I'll go fast! You know I'm good at that," Scout pleaded. 

"No," Miss Pauling said. Firm. 

The look on his face somehow got worse. Kicked puppies, punches to the gut, and all that jazz. 

"Scout," Miss Pauling said to a Scout who looked like he might be on the edge of crying out of sheer frustration, "there's a lot we can do without condoms. Come sit back down, we're losing time." She patted the spot on the bed next to her. 

Scout blinked at her, then smiled. "Oh, ya can't wait to get started, right?"

"Just get back over here."

As he walked back back to the bed, Miss Pauling took a moment to admire his body. He looked much like she had thought -- how she had hoped -- he would look. Lean muscle over long limbs, bony elbows and ribs, a light line of hair trailing down from his navel. When he was close enough, she pulled him back into her arms and they fell back into the bed together. 

When she reached for his erection, the background moans and chatter that Scout had been keeping up the whole time kicked up an octave. Hot breath in her ear with each stroke, and before long his head fell down to rest on her chest.

He didn't last long, as she had suspected he wouldn't. The heat of his body around her and the weight of him slouched against her kept her in a state of constant pleasant distraction, but her wrist wasn't even a little tired as he came thick and hot over her fingers.

"Oh, Miss Pauling, I've wanted this since forever." He mumbled into her shoulder as she stroked him through it. 

Miss Pauling was being pulled away by her own current of passion, but she still had enough space in her brain left to wince and think: _I chose this on a whim twenty minutes ago._

But that thought was out of her head the moment his hand, which had been resting on her stomach, began to move lower.

"My turn." He waggled his eyebrows at her. Scout kept unbroken eye contact as he pornographically licked along his fingers. It wasn't really hot, kind of gross actually, but there was something in the naked earnestness of it that gave her a stupid thrill. Like a lot of stuff about Scout, it was a queer mix of things. The vibe he seemed to want to present was 'suave and cool,' or even a little 'vulgar,' but other emotions could clearly be seen sloshing around underneath. 

Scout watched her face as he slowly pressed his fingers against her, then inside her. His gaze met hers, then his eyes flicked down to her mouth, then back to her eyes again.

She guided his fingers to where she wanted them. Then, she fixed them after he got lost again. _Then_ , she eased them up after he got a little too rambunctious. After that, though, he seemed to relax and find a rhythm that she enjoyed. Once a few minutes had passed, she _really_ enjoyed it.

His other hand ran over her belly and breasts. He kissed her until she had to break it off because her breaths were coming in a shallow stuttery pattern and it was too much for her to concentrate on anything else besides how close she was. And then she wasn't just close, she was there, and, like a spring releasing, her orgasm washed over her. She closed her eyes and held him tight, trying to stretch the feeling out.

"And I wanted this too," he said as the last shudders went though her thighs.

* * *

The cool down was perhaps some of the quietest moments she'd had in the base since this whole thing first started. Lying on the narrow barracks mattress, barely more than a cot, pressed full-length up against Scout, the only sound was his heartbeat, and even that she felt as much as she heard with her ear pressed somewhere between his neck and shoulder. 

It didn't last long. A leopard can't change his spots, and Scout couldn't filter his mouth. 

"--so there's my buddy Donny in the pool bragging about how high he'd jumped from, and I was like 'pfft, you think that's a big deal? I'll give you something to write home about,' so I climbed on top of the gym roof and broke a skylight to dive in. Next think I know, I'm puking pool water onto the chest of the ambulance driver. Gotta tell you it was pretty sweet stunt--"

It was pleasant though, Miss Pauling thought, heavily under the influence of afterglow. His words washed over her in an unbroken chain that, unlike her work, required little input from her. 

"--then of course, the guy had to swing at me. Who can't take a little heckling, right? Some people. Anyway, he was a slow piece of shit and the face he made when I ducked and hit him in the nads was pretty priceless. Wish you woulda been there, Miss Pauling--"

She rubbed Scout's chest and half-heartedly considered the piles of paperwork that were likely building up even now during this little tryst. Miss Pauling banished the thought and let herself begin to drift off against Scout's shoulder. 

"--but, seriously, my ma's gonna love you. She's always after me to bring home a girl who's real wife material. Ma never liked--"

Miss Pauling's eyes snapped open. "Scout," Miss Pauling said slowly. "Do you think I'm your girlfriend?"

He pulled back to look at her. "Well... yeah."

"Why?"

"I mean, we slept together, didn't we? He said like this explained everything. 

She just looked at him, not comprehending. "Lots of people have sex, Scout."

Scout swallowed. "Yeah, but not you. A girl like you isn't running around with just anyone."

Miss Pauling was still for a moment, then pushed herself back and held the sheets up to her chest, her heart beginning to beat faster., but her face was blank. "And what kind of girl do you think I am?" She asked. 

Scout looked like he knew he did _some_ thing wrong, but not what. "A classy one," he said, agitated. "I don't know! Just like a really nice, upscale kind of girl. That's a compliment!"

Miss Pauling felt like she'd had cold water dumped over her head. She got out of bed and started putting her clothes on. She's been so _stupid_. Since she'd set foot through his door, she'd been fascinated in all the signs that he didn't just want her because half the time she was the only woman around. She'd never thought that he actually wanted to dive in head-first and commit to everything just because they slept together.

It was hard to remember how the outside worked sometimes. These mercenaries were such messed up, absurd, sociopaths that it was easy to forget that in some ways she might be the strangest of them all, with the way that she was raised. They, at least, had once had lives unconnected to missions and compounds and surveillance. They'd had childhoods and lived among the wider world. Besides the truly abysmal lack of free time, this had always been the problem when she would try to date off-base. She'd always felt like some kind of alien.

"I have to go, Scout. And... I'm not your girlfriend." It sounded harsher than she meant it, but she had to be blunt and honest. She already felt like she'd tricked him.

"Wait!" Scout said.

Miss Pauling had enough of her clothes on now that she was decent enough to walk the halls. She slipped her shoes on and opened the door to leave this room that smelled like sex and a broken heart as quickly as possible. Scout popped out of bed and followed her to the doorway, seemingly uncaring that his naked body was on display for any potential passer-by to see. 

"I love you, Miss Pauling!"

The breath caught in Miss Pauling's chest, and she forced a long, slow exhale. Scout words were said thoughtlessly, in desperation at seeing her preparing to leave. They were also very, very true. 

She did not say her next thoughts aloud. That would be too cold, even for her. 

_"I love you, Miss Pauling!"_

_I'm sorry._

She walked out the door.


	4. Epilogue

A month later, a Scout that has been much quieter than usual lately sees something fall out of his locker as he wearily unlocks it. He picks up a blank white envelope. When he opens it, he finds a note:

**I'm not your girlfriend. But why don't we have dinner and see where this goes? Meet me in warehouse 3A in the southeast corner with the broken security camera. I'll bring the food and the scrumpy.**

**Author's Note:**

> And that's a wrap!
> 
> Honestly, I wrote this because I really like sex pollen and culture clashes and wanted to get them both in a fic. Ever since Scout said something along the lines of 'Miss Pauling is a classy lady who wouldn't go for a guy like me' in Expiration Date, I've had this idea percolating that Scout (because of the time and place that he grew up) might have really absorbed the idea that classy, educated girls don't have sex unless the relationship is extremely serious. So if Miss Pauling has sex with him, that must mean she's deeply in love with him, right? Or so the Scout-logic goes. I could see that being a big problem in their relationship, and so this fic was born.
> 
> But, if you were wondering, these two eventually work it out and get on the same page. Well, as much as two characters from Team Fortress 2 possibly can.


End file.
